I participate on a site where they give stuff like giftcards etc for prizes. I recently ordered a couple of $25 subway gift cards. I received one of them however the other one i never received it. I then contacted that site and they told me they sent it and gave me a copy of it being sent such as it being cent certified mail.
They also contacted subway and they said they will look into this and if it shows that the card hasn’t been used, then they will send me another one. So the site that i won the gift card from, they have it sent from subway.
At first i thought it probably got lost in the mail but then i started to wonder, could the mailperson know its a gift card and steal it? I did some google search on this and apparently there are ppl who do this. The thing is i was suppose to get both of these gift cards and they were shipped separately but they should have been received pretty close to data. I still haven’t the received the other one as it has been 3 weeks already.
Does anyone think the postman/postwoman could have stolen it? I never considered it until now and thought it probably got lost in the mail. But thing is it was sent certified mail. Also, when you look at the package, its like a postal card in a way where it shows its from subway so its pretty obvious its a gift card.
What can i do about this? I was told by that site that subway will send me another one if they find that the card hasn’t been used. But if it was used, does that mean it has to be 100% the postman/postwoman who did it?
Postal employees steal mail and goods at an alarming rate. From carriers to sorters to handlers and more.
My grandfather was a Postal Inspector and used to take me to the post office and show me the special catwalk and one-way mirror system they used back in the day. They had a separate entrance they would use, so no one in the building would even know if any inspectors/police were there and watching or not. Obviously cameras have replaced the catwalks for the most part. They are everywhere, yet the employees steal all the time.
They know precisely what envelopes contain credit cards, gift cards, merchandise and more.
I’ve seen numbers as high as 20% of employees in past years caught or self-reported in surveys.
It’s remarkably disappointing.
I just filed my first insurance claim with the USPS in my life, and had it denied. A rifle scope stolen, and it’s all on me apparently.
Perhaps Postal Stupidity has increased since I retired from my letter carrier job seven years ago, but that 20% figure sounds awfully high to me.
In my experience most postal workers take pride in being trustworthy. Most who are tempted understand that stealing a $25 item isn’t a good exchange for a career.
Finally, we all know we’re being watched. Despite the fact that we’re on the street unsupervised most of our day, once you’re under suspicion there are ways (like ‘bait letters’) to catch you.
And the postal inspectors are REALLY serious guys.
Perhaps Postal Stupidity has increased since I retired from my letter carrier job seven years ago, but that 20% figure sounds awfully high to me.
In my experience most postal workers take pride in being trustworthy. Most who are tempted understand that stealing a $25 item isn’t a good exchange for a career.
Finally, we all know we’re being watched. Despite the fact that we’re on the street unsupervised most of our day, once you’re under suspicion there are ways (like ‘bait letters’) to catch you.
And the postal inspectors are REALLY serious guys.
Depending on your mailbox setup, a neighbor or random thief could have taken it. (Same with the aforementioned scope.) Remember all those videos during the holidays of people with cameras on their front porches catching people who were “shadowing” delivery/postal trucks then running up to snag what had been left on the porch?
I have worked with a former postal worker, and my husband is a current one as well. Both have told me about the postal inspectors and how they watch from catwalks in the ceiling, plant decoys, and stake out routes. I know that there must be people who’ll risk losing their job and pension and facing federal charges over a $25 Subway gift card, but I suspect they’re few and far between, and it’s possible you’re dealing with one. It’s not necessarily your letter carrier, either - lots of people handle mail on its journey.
I know they sent it certified mail, but I don’t know if they meant that they also added delivery confirmation. I think certified only means that the sender has proof that it was mailed out, and nothing else. So if there wasn’t any tracking added, the card could be a pile of plastic and paper shreds under an automated sorting machine somewhere, after a nasty letter jam, with no one the wiser and no ability to find where it went.
A few weeks ago I ordered an OOP book. It was sent via FedEx, to be delivered by USPS. FedEx tracking showed it to have been delivered, but USPS did not have the number in their tracking system. (Note: USPS number was ‘91’ + the FedEx number.) I assumed that the Mail Lazy delivered it to the wrong address (she’s mis-delivered mail before), and the person who got the book was like, ‘Bonus!’ The seller sent a replacement book, saying the first one must have fallen into the ‘USPS vortex’.
It did not occur to me that my package may have been stolen. Why that one, and not one of the other three arriving at the same time? Could have been that someone dropped the ball (or the book) during the handoff.
I will second the idea that it is possibly people stealing things out of your mailbox. We had a rash of that in this area a while back. Thieves would go around neighborhoods during the day when people were unlikely to be home or paying attention, and swipe anything valuable-looking out of the mailbox.
My experience with the USPS has been that mail theft is taken pretty freaking seriously. As Ferret Herder said, it carries federal charges, so you have to be a special kind of stupid to think a few gift cards are worth the risk. Of course, “special kind of stupid” does seem to apply to some of my husband’s co-workers, so there is that.
I have had 2 packages delivered by UPS this year that were not delivered. I live in a good area and my doorstep isn’t facing the street. UPS said they were stolen and left it at that. I am very skeptical. They were tiny packages that usually fit inside the screen door.
Every so often, I get mail that looks tampered with. Such as envelopes that are 3/4 of the way opened so as to get a look inside to see if there’s anything worth stealing. I can’t recall any instance that looked like deliberate damage, though.
I just had an experience this week with the USPS. A padded envelope arrived with a slit in the top and the article (a knife) missing. There was an empty cardboard box and plastic wrapper.
I contacted the seller and said, “You’ll never believe what happened.” She said, “I do believe it, because it’s happened before.”
Isn’t it possible that the knife cut its own way out of the envelope and fell out? Especially given this seller had the same thing happen before (presumably a similar knife packed in a similar manner).
I thought the cops overestimated production during the onset of any raid, and that these figures would fall, the closer the media became aware of the true quantities involved.
So a raid that seizes $40K worth of actual illegal plants will only report $30K of plants fit for evidence .The missing $10K would always be divvied up amongst the cops, to do with what they felt was reasonable.
I have twice had things stolen from the mail - by postal employees. It took several months for them to admit as much although their own tracking system clearly indicated it reached the warehouse and then - disappeared, it took them almost eight months to pay out and not until they had accused the receiver of having lied about receiving it!
When they finally did payout, they managed to send two identical cheques, later asking for me to return one! They’re idiots, I no longer trust them with parcels. I just pay extra to ship, with someone who’s willing to take some responsibility. When I was making inquiries not one single postal employee I spoke with doubted for a moment that it had been stolen by a postie to quote them, ’ it happens all the time!’
Because in many places in the US, houses are far enough apart that it would take too much time for the mail carrier to walk door to door. Putting the mailbox out on the street means that they can deliver from the mail truck. And by “take too much time” I don’t mean that the mail carriers are lazy or whatever. I mean that they’re given a certain amount of time to finish their routes each day, and having to walk door to door would put them way over and therefore would require hiring a lot more people in order to cover the same ground.
Some places in the US do still have slots in the door or mailboxes mounted on the front of the house next to the door, but it’s not universal.
It would cost too much to have mailmen on foot delivering to every door. There are door to door deliveries where homes and businesses are densely packed.
ETA: Also the USPS loses a lot of stuff, so it may not be theft.
I have a PO Box at the post office. In the past 5 years the employees at that PO have stolen 4 packages from me. The packages are scanned in as received by the PO where my box is and then scanned as delivered to me. (I check on Amazon.) Then I go to the PO to pick them up and they are not there. I ask where are my packages and the response is “oh didn’t you already pick them up?” most of the packages I do receive are re-taped. Their arrogance is amazing. I can’t wait for them to close that branch and the bitches lose their jobs.
I got a birthday card that said, “I hope you enjoy this” and when I called my mom to ask, “Enjoy what?” she said there was a Best Buy gift card in it. She reported it to Best Buy and their security cameras showed someone using it who turned to out to be a USPS employee, and he was arrested.